unbelievable..
 

so i was working on a bike the other day... an "army recon" folding bike. looks nice, but it turns out to be a department-store bike, and things start going downhill, fast.

i was seriously baffled by how awful the components were on that bike. "falcon" derailleurs, with ridiculous grip-shifters. i managed to barely get the rear derailleur to shift, but up in front, after working on it for 30-35 minutes (after a different mech. had been looking at the bike for an hour or so) we finally had to call it quits. that thing just would not shift into the big chainring -- the shifter stopped before giving enough cable tension, and that thing needed a LOT of cable tension. i believe that if it had a smaller bottom bracket, it MIGHT have solved the problem (by bringing the chainrings in), but it was really the shifters that were the problem.

it was probably -- in all honesty -- the worst bike i've worked on.

who designs these things?!

There is a knock off twist shifter, I see on El-cheapo bikes, that requires amazing wrist strength to operate. It usually comes on bikes for little kids.

They've been hawking those bikes for police patrol use. I had a look at the specs and said "no way"....

Yeah, I've sold a few bikes on ebay, and normally fix everything up, adjusting the derailleurs and oil the bike before I sell, ... the bikes end up pretty smooth and pleasant. But my old "department store bike", I was trying for ages to adjust the gears, and I think in the end I just made it worser. Its amazing how bad the quality is.

I think for affordable bikes, singlespeed roadsters are the way to go, they would eliminate most of the components that cause trouble on cheap bikes, and be much more efficient (even with the singlespeed), and of course, a joy to ride.

... I want a singlespeed!! No one has them anymore.